Following a protracted illness, the emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Jabir al-Ahmad al-Jabir al-Sabah, died on Jan. 15, 2006. In accordance with the Kuwaiti constitution, he was immediately replaced by Crown Prince Sheikh Saad al-Abdullah al-Salim al-Sabah (76), who was himself ailing and almost incapacitated. His accession led to an open power struggle with Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al Jabir al-Sabah (76), who was supported by the cabinet and the parliament and had strong followers among members of the Sabah ruling family. On January 23 the cabinet moved swiftly to nominate the prime minister as the next emir of Kuwait, and on the following day the parliament unanimously elected him the new emir. That same day Sheikh Saad sent a letter of abdication to the parliament. Sheikh Sabah was sworn in as the new ruler on January 29.

The short-lived struggle for power in Kuwait was painful and public. The change in leadership served as a clear sign of growing maturity in Kuwait, and the crisis helped to assert the powers and importance of the parliament and the cabinet in settling the unprecedented leadership dispute.

The new emir moved quickly to consolidate his power. On February 8 he appointed his brother Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Sabah as crown prince and heir apparent. He also appointed Sheikh Nassar Muhammad al-Ahmad al-Sabah, the minister in charge of the royal court, as the new prime minister. These moves effectively did away with a long-held political tradition for the emir and the top posts in the government to rotate between the two wings of the Sabah family—the Abdullah and the Jabir lines. The new emir, the crown prince, and the prime minister were all members of the Jabir line.

In May, clashes between the parliament and the cabinet increased. The emir dissolved the parliament before its term expired and called for new elections. The disagreements came about because of demands from lawmakers for democratic reforms and electoral redistricting. After an intense campaign, elections took place on June 29. The Islamist and reformist candidates (that is, the opposition) won 33 of the 50 elected seats (15 cabinet members not elected to the parliament serve ex officio). For the first time in any Kuwaiti parliamentary election, women voted; no women candidates won election, however.

Women applaud at a rally for women’s rights in the city of Sulaibiya, Kuwait, in March. Kuwaiti …

Learn More in these related articles:

The government’s plans for the future included an agreement in March with Kuwait to create a deep-water harbour at Tanga to provide an alternative port to handle heavy goods moving into and out of Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi. In May the Nile Basin Initiative, a nongovernmental organization, launched a project to construct a $200 million hydroelectric plant on the Kagera River on Tanzania’s...